Category: Short Story

Read ‘Timebomb’: My fast-paced space adventure, written for this week’s Reedsy!

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https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/author/joshua-insole/

Hey, guys! How’s everyone doing? We all in the Christmas mood, yet? My partner and I bought our very first Christmas tree the other day, so we’re feeling quite festive!

This week’s Reedsy theme was ‘Pocketful of Sunshine’. I had a hard time picking which prompt I wanted to write to, but I eventually went with #2 — “Your fingers tensed around the object in your pocket, ready to pull it out at a moment’s notice.”

I really liked how the story turned out, and I feel that the characters and worlds have the potential for many more stories. I definitely want to pay these guys a visit again, at some point in the future. I think a prequel or a sequel would be in order… The title of the story is Timebomb, and (you know how it goes, by now!) you can read it here on WordPress, or over on my Reedsy profile.

There were too many to fight. He was outnumbered ten thousand to one. He watched as they all raced towards him, vengeance in their eyes and murder on their lips.

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Well, that’s it for today, guys! Oh, and I hope you’re enjoying my little Bite-Sized Xmas series! If you haven’t checked it out yet, you can read part one of Yule Be Sorry: A Very Bite-Sized Xmas right here!

‘Honesty in G# Minor’ was shortlisted for the Reedsy contest!

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Well, I’ve been shortlisted for the Reedsy competition again! This is the third time I’ve been shortlisted, now. I’ve won it twice, and would love to win it a third time, but being shortlisted three times isn’t anything to sniff at, either!

Honesty in G# Minor was a bit outside my comfort zone as a writer, so it was really nice to know that people actually enjoyed it! If you haven’t already, you can read the story on here, or over on Reedsy.

“Think of it like painting a picture.”

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If you’re interested, you can check out my other stories which were shortlisted:

And my stories which actually won:

 

NaNoWriMo Success and a Very Bite-Sized Xmas!

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NaNoWriMo

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Well, hello there! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I know I’ve still kept my Reedsy short stories updated, but other than that I’ve been AWOL. The reason is that I’ve been participating in NaNoWriMo throughout November! For those of you who don’t know what it is, NaNoWriMo is a challenge to write 50,000 words in one month. It’s a lot… but, as of last night, I officially completed the challenge!

I am super-proud of myself for having ‘won’ this year’s NaNoWriMo. I participated in the challenge once before, and came away with my tail between my legs. The first draft of my novel is now 3/4 complete! I aim to maintain the pace I set during November, and hope to have a fully-polished manuscript at some point next year.

For those of you who are stats nerds like me, I’ve included a screenshot of my November writing stats to give you a bit of a chuckle. I flew back home to the UK to attend my brother’s wedding in November — you can clearly see this in the dent in my progress! But, I managed to claw my way back, tooth and nail! It just goes to show, no matter how far ‘behind’ you feel you are, if you put the work in, you can still succeed.

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A Very Bite-Sized Xmas

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And on to my next project! Back in October I wrote a little piece for my Bite-Sized Horror section for Halloween, consisting of daily ‘bite-sized’ 99-word stories. Well, this Christmas, I’ve decided to do the same! The title of the series is Yule Be Sorry: A Very Bite-Sized Christmas, and every day I’ll be posting a little section of it — all the way up until the 25th!

Unlike my Bite-Sized Halloween story, Yule Be Sorry will be made up of daily stanzas, to form one large poem. I think I did the 99-word story idea to death, and wanted to try something new! I’m not much of a poet — I consider myself to be more of a storyteller… but the idea sounded fun, so we’ll see how it goes!

When I finished my Bite-Sized Halloween piece, I made a post commenting on my lack of preparation in advance, and how if I were to ever do such a thing again, I’d plan it out ahead of schedule… well, that didn’t work out. At all. Mainly due to time constraints and other commitments (i.e. NaNoWriMo). So, much like the Halloween piece, this Christmas piece will be written on the fly, and made up as I go along.

Well, that’s about it, guys! I’m glad to be back, after a month away, and I’m super-excited to see where Yule Be Sorry: A Very Bite-Sized Christmas will take me! (Part one was posted this morning!)

So, look out for a man in a red suit, and keep your ears open for the jingling of bells — it may not be the jolly fellow you are expecting…

Read my quirky little entry for this week’s Reedsy: ‘Frank’

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https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/author/joshua-insole/

Hey, guys! So, here we are, the final day of NaNoWriMo! But… I’ll be making a post about that another day. Today is Reedsy short story contest time! The final Reedsy during NaNoWriMo! I’ve found it a little bit exhausting to maintain all my side stuff alongside NaNo, but I’ve made it!

This week’s Reedsy theme was ‘All the Fixin’s’ for Thanksgiving! As a Brit, I don’t really know what it’s exactly all about, but I was more than happy to pen a story under the theme, nonetheless! I chose prompt #2 — “Write a story about a family dinner that includes someone unexpected showing up.”

The title of my story is Frank, and, as always, you can read it here on WordPress, or over on my Reedsy profile!

We all thought that Frank was dead. Had we known that he wasn’t, we would have killed him again.

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I wrote this piece in a really short space of time, due to my NaNo commitments — it came together in the space of an hour or so. I think it’s got quite an off-beat vibe! I hope you all like it!

Stay tuned for more posts as NaNo comes to an end!